This Girl Can Report

Here is a report from the This Girl Can Fun last week courtesy of Marie Slack:

“Billed as a social, non-competitive, women only, 5k Fun Run in Exhibition Park, the ‘This girl can’ event on Saturday Dec 5th certainly lived up to expectations. The event brought together partners from social running groups and These Girls Can Run, in addition to women from locally based running clubs, lone runners, groups of friends and those using the event to get started. The welcome was warm and the drummers provided some much needed atmosphere and motivation, given the interesting weather conditions! Not particularly cold but in a howling gale we set off on a version of the Parkrun with a few more welcome twists and turns. In the face, from the back, cross winds, we had the lot! If you see a cow sporting a festive hat or race number, you know where it came from! Lots of great fancy dress added to the festive spirit of the event and the lads and ladies of Claremont did a brilliant job from organization HQ in the boathouse. The hospitality on offer at the park café was superb – hot drinks and mince pies galore. A brilliant prize draw and a voucher for a free facial for all (courtesy of ‘Origins’) rounded off a really great morning in the fresh air! These girls can, (even if they weren’t sure they wanted to when they stepped outside their doors on Saturday morning!) and were very proud at the end. Would highly recommend this as an annual event.”

In addition to Marie enjoying her run, other Claremont members have been praised for their support for the run and the TGC campaign. the following are extracts from Kerry Nesbitt’s report (Note Kerry is the Women and Girls Sports Development Officer at Newcastle City Council):

In praise of Mary …
“Mary was one of the first from Claremont Running club to sign up to be involved in the This Girl Can fun run and has been an invaluable part of the group.
Mary started running with one of our first ever Active Newcastle running groups and had never done any running before. She progressed in her running quickly and realised that she enjoyed it and was pretty good too! She’s always very enthusiastic about everything she does whether that’s running, bike rides, circuit training or stuff she does with her grandkids. After anything she does with Mary will say “wow that was brilliant!” – In fact that might be her catchphrase!”

And in praise of Nina …
“I had ran in to Nina through her work for the council and was aware of her sporting activities outside of work she started running quite a few years ago and joined Claremont Runners in the lead up to running her first marathon a few years ago. Nina is someone who is always so supportive of other women taking up sport and physical activity, she is such a fantastic cheer leader for starting to be more active and progressing and she’s been a real value whilst planning the This Girl Can Fun Run. Not only did she work on registrations on her day off this Saturday, she then jogged with Mary at the back of all of the other runners to cheer them on before going to a pantomime in full Santa onesie and This Girl Can t-shirt!”

My own summary – Claremont Girls Can and Claremont Girls Do. Well done to everybody!